Global Network

According to a CNNMoney analysis, women hold 14.2% of the top five leadership positions in S&P 500 companies. And looking lower down the pipeline to women in profit-loss roles — a group commonly gleaned for future CEOs — women also lag behind.

In a time when men dominate executive positions, it’s crucial for women to prepare for C-suite leadership. Yet even in the Executive MBA classroom, the industry average of women is 27.6% (2015 Executive MBA Council Membership Program Survey).

Israel has more startups per capita than any other country, yet the thriving startup scene, sometimes referred to as Silicone Wadi, has less venture capitalists and angel investors than its American, European and Asian counterparts.

Students use learned strategies to negotiate among global peers during Global Network Week.

Global Network Week offers students a valuable opportunity to work with fellow peers from around the world. But what happens when you put them head-to-head, with each side confronting an organizational issue from a different angle?

The answer, according to Greg Hanifee, associate dean of the Kellogg Executive MBA Global Network, is the perfect cross-cultural experience — one that questions your methods and perspective while strengthening your skills for future on-the-job challenges.

For most Executive MBA students, a global experience means an extended stay with your cohort in another part of the world. While there can be value in the bonding that occurs on those global trips, the interactivity with local professionals is often limited to site visits and guest speakers.

But at Kellogg, all students are immersed into a global classroom in the first year of the program.

Every August, first-year Kellogg students have the chance to learn and work alongside peers from across the Kellogg Executive MBA Global Network during Global Network Week, an immersive six-day offering on the Evanston Campus.

Students across the Kellogg Executive MBA Global Network recently convened at Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration in Tel Aviv for an immersive week of networking and learning.

In this global elective week, Kellogg students took courses that focused on venture capital in one of the world’s largest hubs for startups, alongside a diverse mix of students from campuses in Germany, Hong Kong, Beijing and Toronto.

Three students shared their takeaways from the trip.

What was your biggest takeaway?

Diversity of thought and perspective inherent in people of different backgrounds, experiences, and culture is a valuable tool in solving today’s business problems … and that tool is plentiful!

True, it has the second largest population in the world. Also true, approximately half its 1.25 billon people are under 25 years old. But more importantly to my classmates and me, India is poised to become the world’s most dynamic big economy. As The Economistrecently declared, “now is India’s chance to fly.”

To see the growth firsthand, 17 of my classmates and I went to India for eight days of field research, the final portion of our TechVenture India course. This experiential learning course focuses on technology trends in emerging markets.